[xienze]

> “GIPHY delivers real-time GIFs as they happen, helping to power Twitter’s live commentary and conversation,” says Alex Chung, founder and CEO of GIPHY.

Someone built a 30+ person company around animated GIFs. And they say there isn't a bubble...

[frik]

I actually visited Giphy.com the very first time. Wow, such a crazy site. Very similar to many companies in the "F'd companies" book from 2000/01 era. "Giphy Closes $55M Series C at a $300M Post-Money Valuation" (on HN yesterday) Hmm.

[alwaysAttending]

It's a poor man's YTMND

[VeilEm]

It's analogous to building a 30+ person company around MS Office clip art circa 1995 or Print Shop banner designs circa 1985, only now the company is valued at $300m with $50m funding. For gif search. Because I need those memes and I need them fast?

[xienze]

The difference is, that clip art company was directly selling a product. Make a collection of clipart, customers pay money.

[Tenhundfeld]

I guess your critique is that Giphy doesn't have a clear, announced monetization strategy?

That sounds fair. I haven't done any research on the company, but that seemed vague in their recent funding announcement/valuation.

However, I think it's fair to say that Giphy has created something people want to use. Anecdotally, their Slack integration is very popular in the channels I frequent. Maybe the lack of public monetization plan means bubble to you, but it seems the business at least has some value. I don't know if they'll be able to turn that value into revenue, but it seems plausible to me.

I'm not really arguing against your opinion. I'm just trying to get clarity on exactly why you think Giphy is indicative of a bubble. Searching for funny gifs may seem frivolous, but it's something people value. If Giphy can capitalize on that value without losing users / destroying the brand, it seems like a reasonable foundation for a business.

[xienze]

What makes this indicative of a bubble is the combination of:

a. Business centered around an utterly frivolous endeavor

b. Seemingly far more employees than necessary to support (a)

c. Many millions of dollars raised in the pursuit of (a) and (b)

You're absolutely correct that people want to use it. But they sure as hell aren't gonna pay directly for it or put up with ads. This is not a business made to last. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Yet there are people out there willing to toss $55M into this folly.

[Tenhundfeld]

Yeah, I guess I put less weight on your point a. Frivolity doesn't necessarily mean an inability to generate revenue. Things that seem frivolous at first or frivolous to certain people can turn into a Real Business™.

However, I agree that people wouldn't pay for it or put up with ads. As a casual Giphy user, I certainly wouldn't pay for it, and to your point, I wouldn't invest my own money in Giphy.

Anyway, thanks for spelling out your reasoning. Cheers.

[makeee]

Actually Giphy has a pretty sound business model. They are already integrated into most of the large communication services used in the US (facebook messenger, twitter, slack, kik). When a movie studio wants to promote their next film they are going to pay Giphy a lot of money to make sure their gifs are featured. It's not inconceivable that that Giphy and it's like (Riffsy, PopKey) become a massive advertising channel for movies and tv. $300m seems like a lot, but I don't think it's ridiculous.

[dfischer]

Valid points but I think you're underestimating pop culture and how things like gifs are being used by the masses.

Users always end up having value because of ads. People always pay for that.

[api]

Your (b) is a big one in my mind. The core of giphy could be run by one person. There's probably enough monetization potential here for a good healthy lifestyle business for 1-3 people.

[cbhl]

What about sponsored GIFs from your favorite top brands? Something like Purina Beggin, or Tide, or American Airlines.

[dandandan]

I think it's more relevant that Giphy isn't providing any original content, whereas the clipart vendors were selling their own media. Giphy is merely providing hosting for users' content, much of which is copyrighted.

[Keats]

If only the gif search worked. 75% of the time when I do a giphy search on slack i get completely unrelated gifs.

[theTaggedTags]

It's all about the tags. You have to work in the other direction. Find something well-tagged, then giphy the fully qualified tag that produces the same gif every time.

Granted, this is not a "search engine" type of use case, but the actual existence of some gifs, and the tags applied, force a degree of compromise.

[LoSboccacc]

That we're still at manual tagging says a lot about current state classificators despite all the press they generate

[Keats]

I am not the one that got $50M in funding though, I just want to use their one line integration on slack. That's up to them to make it not work, not me.

[derFunk]

You nailed it. See my comment from yesterday, it's the same for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11113644

[Gmo]

Same here, useless 90% of the time.

[slig]

Yesterday's story "Giphy Closes $55M Series C at a $300M Post-Money Valuation" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11110828

[mintplant]

They're rehosting loads of copyrighted content, too.

[georgehotelling]

That was pretty much how YouTube started. Content ID wasn't part of their MVP.

[rhino369]

One key difference I see is that GIPHY is clearly either uploading or categorizing/tagging/grouping pretty obviously copyrighted stuff and is doing so under their own name "team giphy." That's a huge risk because it probably breaches the copyright safe-harbor under DMCA.

If they cut that out, they are probably fine.

[minimaxir]

Content ID was added because of the legal issues YouTube faced.

[ljk]

why are there no legal issues with giphy.com?

[roymurdock]

Because they're not making enough money for anyone to care yet.

[zatkin]

If you get your business very large very quick, you can pay off settlements and regulations. This is sort of what Uber has been doing, from what I've come to understand.

[rezistik]

Wouldn't GIF's count as original work in the IP courts? As in, the GIF is a significant change from the source so it's now a new thing.

[golergka]

I don't think that technological approach is enough here. You don't seem to take cultural significance of GIFs into account.

It's like saying that Pinterest is a photo album. Or that Twitter is just a blog engine with 140 characters. Completely correct. Completely missing the point.

[dominotw]

>Someone built a 30+ person company around animated GIFs.

Its one my main sources of entertainment( imgur). There is an explosion of information/media on the internet and we need new formats, presentation to reign that in and make it palatable. I don't think its as stupid as you are making it out to be. There is huge potential in this space.

[nl]

Don't view it as a software company. View it as a media company.

Plenty of 30+ person magazines or topic you've never heard of (Or there used to be - now they are 5 person websites).

[ksherlock]

That's a $300 million 30+ person company, thank you very much.

[swalsh]

They're a bit large, yes, but if you're trying to target generation z... it's a step in the right direction.

[ryanSrich]

GIPHY is the ultimate tech bubble company.

[forrestthewoods]

Someone is making money off a series of moving images? My god! Who woulda thunk such a thing possible?